The Wall Street Journal-20080204-Business and Finance
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Business and Finance
Full Text (308 words)Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang help in any effort to thwart Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion bid. Though regulatory concerns make a bid by Google unlikely, it could play a role in bids by others. Microsoft's likely first focus if the deal goes through will be ad-delivery systems, where it is trying to battle Google.
AOL will lose two potential partners if Microsoft buys Yahoo, a further complication for Time Warner's new CEO.
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TV studios are scrambling to get key series back into production fast as progress is made in the writers strike.
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Analysts forecast S&P 500 profits will rise 2.6% in the first quarter and 3.5% in the second, but jump 20% and 50% in the year's last two quarters.
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The Treasury issued a ruling that allows companies to freeze the pensions of older workers in certain cases.
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A French probe into Societe Generale's rogue-trading scandal is expected to report today that the bank's controls were too lax.
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Three major banks plan to limit financing of coal-fired power plants over concerns about the costs of any future emission-cap systems.
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Freddie Mac is working on a proposal that it create and sell bonds backed by multifamily mortgages, instead of keeping the loans it buys.
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Drug-coated stents had 62% of the stent market in December, matching the three previous months but far below their share as recently as 2006.
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Two Goldman bankers are teaming up to run a new $2 billion private- equity fund aimed at landing deals in China.
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Lone Star Funds faces complications in its plan to sell Korean Exchange Bank after a Korean court finds the firm guilty of stock manipulation.
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Yahoo plans to shutter an online music service that charged a flat monthly fee for access to a vast library of songs.
